Vacations can be both fun and hazardous
Your only on vacation right?
Well your not in Kansas anymore Dorothy,
Plain and simple your wonderful medical insurance from back home in the USA or Canada won’t pay down here and they won’t accept it as payment if your hurt or injured. Mexico has been a pay as you go society for ever and even though it’s 50-70% cheaper here you will still need to hand over your Visa or Amex card or cash if you go to the hospital, if you’re at a small clinic it’s cash and carry. Yes your carrier might re-imburse you after tens of thousands of dollars and many months of fighting with them.
Millions of Americans and Canadians visit here every year and with that many visitor’s accidents do happen while playing golf, horseback riding, zip lining or body surfing. I’m not trying to be morbid or scare anybody but the reality is a lot of tourist on vacation get hurt in some kind of recreational fun or activity. It happens just like back home your jet skiing and you run into something or god forbid you have a stroke or heart attack.
I’ve seen plenty of boomers throw out their backs trying to windsurf or just having way to much fun and lets face it your probably not in the shape you think you are or were 20 years ago now are you? I was vacationing in Todos Santos in Baja a few years back and went body surfing with my friend James. The beaches there aren’t the best for swimming there and we watched the sets for awhile and discussed how to get in and out, the beach line is steep and the surf was pounding looked like fun to me. Getting in was no problem we played around for awhile and then tried to time an exit. Well it took us 4 tries to get out we both were pretty tired and somewhere in all of that excitement I hit a rock on the bottom. I needed stitches from trying to body surf in Baja pretending I was still a kid, had a ball but took a good lick on a rock that just came out of nowhere. Life comes at you hard when your having fun. Point is I needed to see a doctor and it cost me some cash for the visit.
I’ve have had to see a doctor on vacation in Panama and Mexico, it happens but it’s nice to know that I’m covered and better yet the local hospital smiles when I present my IMG insurance card they know instantly how their getting paid and I have piece of mind that I’m covered even in a foreign country with a great health insurance plan underwritten by a US global insurer from Indiana.
I can’t say enough about how cheap it is to have piece of mind whether its for a week or 6 months. The cost is a small price to pay for complete protection for my family and I while traveling here in Mexico or overseas.
Now that we have transitioned from being tourist to full timers here in Mexico we have kept our IMG Patriot policy. We know that if we want to travel back to the US for some major surgery or cancer treatment we can or we can just opt to get our treatment here at a local Mexican hospital in Guadalajara that frankly are topnotch and considered by many to be world-class teaching hospitals. If you haven’t kept up with medical treatment in Mexico it’s is a great value and the personalized service usually shocks people, doctors here actually see their patients and get to know you and give you their cell phones to call them for any reason and they make house calls routinely. Sounds like medicine back in the 50’s in the US doesn’t it?
